Travis Hunter jokes he will go back to college football after seeing Carson Beck NIL deal at Miami

The Miami Hurricanes opened up the checkbook to land Carson Beck, a quarterback transfer from Georgia, with it being reported he’ll be paid $4 million by the Hurricanes for around $10 million. It’s enough money to make future first round NFL Draft pick Travis Hunter consider staying in school.

Hunter, while discussing the amount of money Beck has been and will be getting paid, joked that he wants to go back to college to see just how much money he can get.

“How do you get $10 million? Where’s my $10 million? How are people getting this much money bro? Hold up, let me go test this out,” Hunter joked on The Travis Hunter Show. “Let me go back. I’m going back to college. Let me see if I can get $100 million. Let me go see if I can win another Heisman, because $10 million, I ain’t make that in college. Let me go hit the portal.”

Hunter, being a two-way star and the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, would likely earn plenty in an NIL deal from returning to school. However, it’s difficult to say how well he would do when compared directly to a quarterback, playing the most highly valued position.

“The going rate for an elite transfer portal quarterback is $1 million, but that is just the floor. Multiple quarterbacks this past offseason commanded deals worth over $1 million annually from NIL collectives,” On3’s NIL expert Pete Nakos previously said. “Landing a quarterback for $3 million would be an outlier in the portal unless it is a multi-year deal.”

Beck currently has an On3 NIL Valuation of $4.4 million, while Travis Hunter is sitting at $5.7 million. That makes them both top five on the On3 NIL 100 list of athletes.

Still, Hunter is likely making the right financial decision by going to the NFL now. Last year, first overall pick Caleb Williams signed a 4-year, $39 million deal. The 32nd overall pick, Xavier Legette, signed a four-year $12.3 million deal. That came with a $5.8 million signing bonus. So, if Hunter goes in the first round as expected, it should be a smart financial choice that also gets him to his second NFL contract quicker.

College football has gone through some rapid changes. While staying in school probably isn’t right for Hunter, it is going to be for other players, like Beck. The ability to make money also allows players to stay longer than they may have been able to in the past.